Bill Richmond

            On Tuesday morning I re-memorized the first verse of “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo) by Serge Gainsbourg. I had memorized an inaccurate translation before so I had to revise it and start again.

            I weighed 86.35 kilos before breakfast. It’ll be interesting to see what my doctor’s scale says later today. 

            A little after 13:00 I started riding up to Avenue Road and Eglinton for my annual check-up. I stopped at Long and McQuade to pee. I didn’t have to go that badly but it’s a long bike ride and I didn’t want any wet accidents. 

            Dr. Shechtman checked my blood pressure and my heart but didn’t check my prostate. My blood pressure was 110 over 80, which he said is excellent. he weighed me at over 89 kilos. My scale is off. I thought my left ear was plugged but he said it was clear. He offered me the pneumonia vaccine but I said I’m not social enough to worry about it. If I was living in a retirement home I’d get it. He gave me the forms for the usual blood tests. 

            He said he stopped working on weekends and now he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He has a two year old granddaughter who gives him a lot of joy. 

            I weighed 86.25 kilos at 15:55. 

            I took a siesta and slept three and a half hours. 

            I weighed 86 kilos at 21:15. I dropped the scale a couple of days ago and since then it seems to be registering lower readings. 

            I was behind on my journal and worked on getting caught up but at the end of the day I was still not up to the present. 

            I grilled two T-bone steaks and had one with a potato and gravy while watching season 7, episode 8 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            There is a parody of Jack Laland’s exercise show with Lyle as Jack. Carol plays an extremely obese woman trying to follow along and she ends up destroying some furniture before collapsing. At the end Jack Laland comes out of the bedroom and the obese lady is his wife. 

            Steve Lawrence sings “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” by Cole Porter from the 1936 film Born to Dance. 

            Carol plays Jessica, a 9 months pregnant woman and Paul Sand plays her husband Matthew who is sleeping. She wakes him up to remind him that they’re going to have a baby. He says he knows. She complains that he doesn’t seem that excited about it. She is very moody and jumps back and forth from being affectionate and critical. She asks if he’s excited and he says he’s very excited about her baby but now she’s upset that he didn’t say “our baby”. She accuses him of being jealous and he admits it but says he hates himself for it. Jessica says it’s okay and they make up but suddenly she goes into labour. Everything is ready except he discovers he forgot to put gas in the car. She accuses him of not wanting her to have her baby. He calls her on saying “my baby”. He says it’s all about her because she gets all the gifts and the pain. She says she’s going to share everything including the pain. He starts to feel the contractions. She calls the ambulance and says she and her husband are having a baby. 

            There’s a parody of “Double Indemnity” called “Double Calamity”. Steve Lawrence plays Walter Leph, an insurance salesman. He enters his office with six bullet wounds and sits at his desk to talk into a Dictaphone to leave a dying message for his boss Mr. Keys. he confesses to killing Dietrichsen for money and a dame. Then there’s a flashback when he comes to Dietrichsen’s home to get a signature on a policy. He meets Dietrichsen’s wife Phyllis (played by Carol) and they become lovers immediately as well as co-collaborators in a plot to kill her husband and collect the double calamity insurance. Dietrichsen comes home and finds them kissing but it doesn’t register as anything out of the ordinary. He signs the policy then they kill him. But for the policy to be paid out he also has to fall from a blimp and so he is dropped onto the Rose Bowl Parade. Later Phyllis and Walter shoot each other several times. 

            There’s a tribute to Irving Berlin to celebrate his 85th birthday. Carol, Harvey, Vicki, Lyle, Steve, Paul and the dancers perform a medley of all of his popular songs, such as “Let’s Face the Music and Dance”, “I’m in Heaven”, “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, and “Happy Holidays”. 

            One of the writers on The Carol Burnett Show was Bill Richmond, who started out as a drummer for Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, harry James, Les Brown, and Nelson Riddle. After becoming a drummer for Jerry Lewis he began pitching gag ideas. Jerry liked them so much he made him a co-writer. He co-wrote The Nutty Professor of 1963 and of 1996, The Errand Boy, The Ladies Man, The Patsy, and Cracking Up. He played Stan Laurel in The Bellboy. He won three Emmy Awards for The Carol Burnett Show.